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Discussion

Writing Ugly

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In writing, it seems to me that the trick is to invest these characters with flaws but to still make the reader fall in love with them. Because a flawed multidimensional character is often much more interesting than a picture-perfect Ken doll.

What do y’all think?

The Tension Between Sci Fi Romance and Gay Sci Fi

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In my wanderings through the LGBT sci fi community, I’m finding that there’s a whole lot out there these days melding sci fi themes with MM romance. While I think that’s wonderful and an amazing thing, I also find very little that’s straight (pardon the pun) sci fi that includes LGBT characters, but is not centered around an MM (or FF) romance. Don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot of great sci fi out there (Angel Martinez, Amy Lane, I’m looking at you) that gets the sci fi right and includes the romance too. But I come at this … Read more

Writing Five Things at Once

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I’ve always thought I was a little ADD – generally, I flourish when I can be bouncing back sand forth between multiple tasks, and rarely do I sit down and do just ONE THING AT A TIME.

But sometimes I wonder if this serves me well in my writing too.

Critiquing – Finding the Balance

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As part of the QueerSciFi.com site, we have a fairly new section where authors can share their WIP’s for critiques – anything from a general “what do you think?” to a more detailed line-by-line edit. But as I start doing more of these critiques, I’m learning (or re-learning) that not everyone agrees on how to do a good critique. I did one critique this last week where the author pointed out after the fact that my use of LOL and “unintentionally funny” could be seen as derogatory to the author and / or their work. While my comments were not … Read more

Writing Transgender

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I’m about to start off on a new story, and have decided to include a transgender character with basically a gay orientation. I know a fair amount about the transgender community from covering the struggle for LGBT rights for six years. But knowing is not the same as living. I’ve decided to try to find an expert to help me get the details right. I’m not straight, but I write straight characters. I’m not a woman, but I’ve written female characters. I’m not a werewolf… well, you get the idea. But I think writing transgender characters is a bit of … Read more

Keeping the Focus

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One of my greatest challenges is sticking to my planned writing times and actually writing for the whole hour I set aside each day for that purpose. The reasons are myriad. My phone buzzes when I get a text or facebook contact. I want to check for new emails I run a little late at “work” and use up some of my writing time the phone rings We have plans that conflict with my writing time I’m just feeling particularly ADD My plan is to always write from 5-6 PM, for an hour, without exception, but of course life doesn’t … Read more

Looking for Inspiration

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Where do you go when you need a little inspiration for your writing? What do you do? For me, it’s often music. Sometimes a certain song will tweak an idea in my mind, a seed that then grows into an idea for a story – not a simple retelling of the song’s lyrics, but more a feeling, an idea that springs from it. Other times, I’ll be stuck somewhere in a story, and I’ll be in the car on the way somewhere, and again a song will tease an idea free in my head, which will link to something else … Read more

Writing the Future

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One of the most difficult things for me as a sci fi author is figuring out what I think the future will look like. Not just socially – that’s often the fun part, coming up with new social constructs to hang my story on. But also physically. What will the cities look like? What will gadgets look like? How will they work? How ill we eat? Communicate? Have sex? These can be fun things to figure out too, but they can also be writing minefields. Take, for example, computers. 50 years ago, they existed only as huge, room-sized things that … Read more

Setting Off on a New Adventure With Old Friends

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I’m starting off on what’s sort of a re-write and sort of a re-imagining of a WIP I’ve had around for a long time. First, a little history. I started writing Oberon back in the nineties, It was my first attempt to really merge my gay identity with my love for sci fi, and I got maybe five scenes in before I left it to sit on the shelf, along with the rest of my writing career. Fast-forward to last year. I’d picked up my writing again after a decade’s hiatus, and came across this interesting little bit of a … Read more